Network priority is a means of network bandwidth management for data, video and voice traffic and is implemented with administrator-defined policies. This kind of management is termed Quality of Service (QoS) and is controlled using policy-based network processes. In policy-based networking for an Internet Protocol (IP)-based network, a policy refers to a formal set of statements that define the manner of resource allocation among its clients. In policy-based networking, the administrator uses policy statements in order to define a particular level of priority for each of the kinds of services according to parameters including time schedules and according to devices defined by parts or subnets of the network.
Typically, an administrator establishes the provisioning of the QoS of network policies on an ad hoc basis. This approach requires a great deal of administrative effort, particularly where provisioning for voice-over-IP (VoIP) devices, video devices, or critical servers is required. Further, this approach can yield undesired performance in the resulting network due to inconsistencies in the user set up.